Republicans in the US House and Senate yesterday issued a completely new and innovative message, the Pledge to America. This document tells us how the Republicans will govern least for us, in our best interest, following their landslide victory in November, 2010.

Of course…

• They haven’t won their landslide victory…yet
• There is no governance plan in their Pledge
• They certainly did a great job when they were the majority player in the US Congress

But, lets take a look, shall we?

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Republicans in the US House of Representatives, in their “new” Pledge to America, claim to offer “a plan to repeal and replace the government takeover of health care.” Of course, the law to which they refer is the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (Public Law 111-148) of March 23, 2010. However, the law does not takeover health care in our country. Instead, it regulates the medical insurance industry. All of us know this, but still we insist—apparently—on hyperbole and misinformation. We have placed ourselves down on an altar of hysteria rather than fact.

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We are building a Maginot Line across our southern border with Mexico to control illegal immigration from Latin American nations, primarily to prevent crime and protect jobs. Of course, these immigrants, in most cases, “take” jobs for which most US citizens do not seek. Middle-class Americans decry the large US companies that lay off skilled manufacturing and IT workers by outsourcing those positions outside our country. Voters are very responsive to complaints by Tea Party groups and Republicans that the Obama administration and Democrats in general have not yet overcome the loss of jobs that continues from the Great Recession.

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Nothing stirs the blood of a citizen—a patriot—as strongly as the evil words: “Taxes” and “Taxation.” Because of our nation’s history, we most often remember the example of King John of England (“Lackland”), whose policies resulted in the Magna Carta, and the American complaint against the English Parliament first enunciated in 1750: “No taxation without representation.” We voice strident complaints against taxes and taxation in each generation, and especially these days. If we peel away the hyperbole and venom, however, we might see that many who so loudly complain about our government and our taxes appear to have very self-serving reasons for doing so.

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